A Filled Space
by carpetfibers
Summary: "Too young, he thinks, to have so occupied his thoughts. Far too young for a grown man, her once professor, to stare at so openly, so longingly. The sting of her blue flames pinches his fingers, but he grasps her palm between his own and lets the warmth of her skin block the self-disgust that swells when he finally admits to it: He cares for her, and he does not hide from it." RLHG
1. One-Two

_A/N: This is a completed story, which will have its various parts posted daily until finished. The prompt came from a reader of 'Missed' who was looking for, I imagine, something a little different from this end result. Perhaps I'll actually follow the prompt to the letter at some point. I'll post the prompt at the end of the story._

 _Warnings: Slightly more mature content in later chapters; will be marked as such. AU in that folks are alive that aren't in the books._

 _Disclaimer: JKR owns everything._

 **A Filled Space**

 **1**

She takes solace in the mundanity of it, the pure simplistic emptiness of it. Day in and day out, she scrubs and waxes, polishes and dusts, cleans and shines, until the floors sparkle and the windows glisten. Her muscles ache come the evening, and when sleep finds her hours later, she dreams of nothing. The life of a maid is not what the world envisioned for Hermione Granger, but she welcomes it.

She is invisible and hidden, and no one knows of it.

Harry and Ron believe her to be thousands of miles away, holed up in a strict apprenticeship in Greece, studying arithmancy and lunar currents. She never lied, not exactly; she did receive the offer and she did write a letter of acceptance. But the parchment the owl took from her contained nothing of glad tidings and excitement. The school did not send a second letter, and Hermione was glad for it.

Her former roommates, the ones that still draw breath at least, trade rumors of an elopement with her once would-be paramour Viktor Krum. That his denials in the papers couple with dark blushes do nothing to hinder the gossip. She is sorry for the undue attention, but not for the cover it grants her.

The Weasleys senior were concerned, at first, when her name on their clock pointed to Lost. But Hermione is cleverer than most, and in her haste to disappear, she managed the sort of charm-work that first brought her the apprenticeship offer. The clock shows her at School now, and the Weasley family thinks nothing of the fact it never changes.

Her parents required no convincing or trickery. Why bother them with something they could not even remember? Her most clever of achievements, this saving of her parents: her spell was too good, too thorough. They have their roses and inverted seasons, and Hermione does not visit.

She walks, now, to the empty house her parents left her unknowingly. The yard remains neat and tidy, the only piece of upkeep she maintains. Her mother's roses died during her year on the run, but magic is kind to those needing a mere quick glamour. The only part of it she can't manage is the smell; her roses flutter in the wind, bend in the breeze, but smell of nothing but damp earth and stale stalks.

She turns on the telly and removes her shoes. The pins holding her hair up follow, along with her keys and purse. She sits in her stockings and massages her feet, nibbling on a bag of beef flavored crisps and weighing whether a proper dinner or an indulgent bath would be the better reward for the eleven hours of hard labor that filled her day. Her new assignment is the repair of a formerly vacant house, narrow and built of fading red brick. She imagines her hands were the first to grace its interior in decades, the photographs dotting the walls smudged beyond all recognition.

The couple on screen argues and then embraces, clothes lost in the dash to reconcile, and the music played during their coupling reminds her of school and her fourth year ball. She opts for the bath and is asleep an hour later.

 **2**

The study reeks of molded pages; more than one book crumbles at her touch. She sorts and organizes, divides and conquers. Hermione loses half a day in her efforts to repair the room to some semblance of care and invitation. She replaces the drapes and admires the garnet gleam of them against the drab wallpaper. Her cheeks flush from the effort of lifting and adjusting; she welcomes the ache of her arms as she stretches dangerously from the ladder.

Her wand is at home, along with the temptation of its use. If she could _magick_ her way through the job, what was the point? She likes to think Professor Snape would have appreciated the sentiment; she likes to think he'd have understood her choice to hide in plain sight.

She hopes, as she fights with a crack of blackened quoining, that he's happier on the other side of things. She hopes they all are, the ones who died and left her.

Hermione breaks only for her lunch and when the sun sets and her watch warns her of excess hours, she considers staying the night. The shelves require more attention, layers of books still untested and judged. Deep into the night, she turns the pages, distracted too easily by a spare passage describing faerie lights and another exploring early maritime charmwork. Sleep finds her halfway through a treatise written in early elvish, and while her dreams force frightened chatter from her lips and wrinkle her brow with long-vanished monsters, she wakes remembering none it.

A hand is on her shoulder, the palm warm and the fingers long and taut. She travels past the hand and arm to the face gazing down at her, and, for the first time in days and weeks and a millenia of minutes, a rush of nervous fear strikes her.

"Please, Professor Lupin, you can't tell them I'm here."


	2. Three-Four

_For_ _Peque Saltamontes_

 **A Filled Space**

 **3**

Remus Lupin faces most problems in his life with overnight deliberation; he processes the pros and the cons, weighs the ups and the downs, and then lets five and a half hours of sleep offer the final decision. He rarely regrets his choices afterward; he has only once found the process to deviate from reliability. The punishment for that one exception continues to exact itself in awful creativity. He wonders, only when drunk and fully wretched, if everyone he loves will be shown the same retribution.

It takes only seconds for him to decide how to answer Hermione Granger's request. A second deviation- but he doesn't question the wisdom of it.

In the days that follow, he watches as she slowly restores the library, methodically organizing and processing each book that passes through her hands. She doesn't greet him or ask after her friends. She hardly seems to notice him at all, ignoring the cups of tea he leaves for her, or the plates of sandwiches he places beside her. She works with feverish intent, and Remus wonders at it, at her thinness and passive gaze.

He finds small excuses to ask after her with Harry, and then the Weasleys. Greece, they all say, vaguely mentioning scholastic endeavors and strict schedules. Remus takes these details and pushes at them.

Why the lie, he wonders, watching as she strips the peeling wallpaper and smoothes her hands over the uncovered walls. Why the deception, he ponders, staring at the tight knot of hair that pulls all too severely from her uncolored features.

The Hermione Granger he remembers from Hogwarts was studious and loyal, far too clever for her own good, and unabashedly optimistic. He rifles through his memories of her, trying to pinpoint an explanation for her present behavior. Remus tells himself it's good-natured concern that drives his interest and not a less kind curiosity.

His weakness is puzzles, and-

She falls asleep again, a week later, while reading; he crouches beside her and studies the smooth lines of her cheeks, the straight edge of her nose and the crush of dark lashes against her skin. So very young, he thinks. So very lovely, he realizes. He drapes his robes over her shoulders and makes a second decision.

\- this is a puzzle that he wishes to solve.

 **4**

The last stretch requires spellwork, and Hermione shudders as she readies her wand. The incantation is a simple one, Third Year level at its best, and it takes her four tries to get the right of it. Her summons draws out the dustdevils and gnomes, the page-pixies and translucent buggaboos; they frown and grumble, fighting the pull of the spell, but as they close in on the box and her waiting wand, the spell takes stronger hold. Happily, they enter their new cage and prison, and in less than a quarter of an hour, the library is finished. The second charm, a quick shrinking one, only requires two attempts to take hold.

Her knees falter in her relief, and Hermione gives herself a minute's respite as she rests on the wooden floor.

Professor Lupin, she knows, is watching from the doorway. She can feel his gaze, steady and curious and infuriating, just as she has for the past two weeks. He asks nothing of her, but she hears the questions, the considerations, and as much as she is escaping from her world, she has not escaped herself.

Hermione knows the number of rooms in the house, and she knows the days that it will take to complete. Five weeks and two days, she tells herself, pressing her fingers against the smoothly polished floorboards. There are worse things than being watched; the scars along her forearm remind her of this.

When she leaves for the night, the rain bored and misting, she relishes the twitch of annoyance in his gaze when she ignores the umbrella he offers her.


	3. Five-Six

_For_ _Peque Saltamontes_

 **A Filled Space**

 **5**

Remus decides, on a sunny morning buffeted by a cool wind, that while she might choose not to speak, he still can. He draws carefully from his cup of tea, watching as she scrubs the cracked grout on the kitchen floor, and considers his words with purpose.

"Harry showed me the ring last night."

The falter is minute, but he notices how her rhythm stutters, staccatos off beat for a brief second, before leveling.

"A bit overdone, in my opinion, but surely to Ginny's tastes. Some kind of goblin-wrought piece, thinly braided and dotted with dragon pearls."

He drinks again from his tea, the liquid bitter as he reaches the bottom of the cup. The taste swirls over his tongue, and he continues, eyes intent on the grip of her hands on the scrubbing brush. "I thought it strange that he didn't want to use his mother's ring."

He remembers with unfair clarity the joy that filled Lily's eyes when James casually opened the box that held the ring. The simple band, studded with tiny emeralds that glittered and glowed, slid easily on her finger; she cried and James cried, and Remus promised them both that only happiness would find them.

He always was skilled at giving empty promises. Dora knew that all too dearly, and her son- _his_ son- will learn it in due time, Remus is sure.

"Harry plans to propose on Christmas."

The brush catches on a broken edge of tile and a thick line of blood oozes along her thumb. She rises stiffly and runs the length of her fingers under the faucet, taking far longer than probable to clean the cut; when she turns to face him, nothing of his words are reflected. Her brown eyes look to a point beyond his shoulder, and she's careful to step around him as she passes through the doorway.

The last of the tea is thick with leaves and he questions the shape left in their settling. A definite wheel, intersected with concentric knots- Sybil Trelawney would interpret an early death or near-fatal disfigurement. But a wheel promises change, a steady movement toward a vacillating future, bound by worry and fear, surely- but still, change.

Remus has no faith in fate or providence; he empties the leaves in the sink and readies the kettle for a fresh batch.

 **6**

It's not that Hermione is in love with him; her feelings for Harry are not the things of childhood puppy love and unresolved tension. It's that she _loves_ him, and that she _loves_ Ginny, and she knows this to be a stupid, _stupid_ decision. But Harry doesn't listen to her- he's never really listened to her. Not when it counted, not when his opinion differed.

She remembers the taste of too-sweet elvish wine, thick with elder leaves and holly berries; sweat beading along her jaw; the sharp edge of a mantle against her back.

The ridged kitchen tile digs into her knees, marking long lines in her skin as she shuffles over the floor, scrubbing and scouring. She hopes she's wrong.

But she's seldom wrong, not when it comes to Harry.


	4. Seven-Eight

_For_ _Peque Saltamontes_

 **A Filled Space**

 **7**

When she leaves his house, the half moon high overhead and the stars hidden behind a haze of gauzy cloud, he follows. Remus makes no effort to disguise his intent, and when she increases her speed, he stretches his longer gait and draws closer. For six blocks he follows behind her, turning right when she turns right, pausing at the cross street as she adjusts her jumper.

At the floo point, she stops and glares into the grate, her shoulders hunched and dripping of apparent annoyance. He welcomes the change in disposition, having come to dislike her forced apathy. His puzzle has grown into a larger occupation, and her unchanging countenance is a brick wall. He cannot push his words past it, he cannot navigate through it with casual politeness.

He intends to provoke, and he tells the small part of him that cares about such things, that it has more to do with concern this time than curiosity.

"What do you want?" she finally says.

"Why are you cleaning houses instead of studying in Greece?"

She sighs, her fingers kneading the back of her neck. Her hair shifts with her struggle, the mass loosening from the tight knot she favors. He watches as the band breaks, the pins fall, and suddenly she returns to him, the girl he knew from years before, the young child he witnessed age and diminish as the years and war beat at her brow.

Dark near-curls, heavy and thick, and her eyes lift to meet his own, a spark of anger and defiance accusing him of things he feels no guilt for- Remus feels the puzzle shift, and two pieces secure themselves, a picture finally granted.

"It's none of your business," she tells him, chin raised and lips thin. "Don't you have a son and wife to care about?"

The clouds gather and the moon slides behind them, the light slithering deeper into a mist. He weighs whether to tell her; he thinks of his finished library and the near-finished kitchen. Rooms remain still, and she's not changed enough from childhood to quit a job half way through.

"It seems that Dora was not quite as enamored with the idea of being married to a werewolf when there was a chance her son might become one."

The anger wilts, and her gaze becomes soft as she steps toward him, crossing into the brightness of the street light. "I'm sorry- I didn't know. Then, is Teddy-"

Unsettled, he turns from her eyes, far too kind and sympathetic of an expression in them, and shakes his head. "No, Teddy is _normal_ ; he takes after his mother, thankfully."

"Professor-" The pressure from her palms on his arm is slight, the warmth negligible, but the touch is the first he's felt in almost half a year. His ears cloud with thunder and his eyes drop to her fingers, reddened by the day's labor and night's chill, and he searches his memory for any time before when he might have noticed them: thin digits, slight and average in length; unremarkable and ordinary, yet- her hands are still and calm against his arm. The touch burns, it exhilarates-

"-I'm sorry. I hadn't heard- the boys, in their letters, never mentioned it."

With a squeeze, she releases his arm and reaches into her pocket for the floo powder. Remus lets her leave; he doesn't ask his questions or try to force from her another piece for his puzzle. He can only watch as she whispers a cross-street and vanishes in a swirl of green and ash.

 **8**

Hermione tries to return to her self-enforced ambivalence, but the many tiny details she'd so studiously ignored force themselves to the forefront. The purchase of a new home, the addition of a nursery but with none of the typical female considerations, the many photographs now adorning the study, but none of the wedding or years following: so many faces, laughing and mischievous, and yet none of Lupin's wife.

She sands down the kitchen table with strong, steady strokes, admiring as the worn surface gives way to a deeper, richer hue.

She hates the idea of applying a varnish, hates the practical necessity of sealing in the wood, the scent of oak ripe in her nose. She sits for a moment, allowing herself the brief break to touch and press upon the wood. Carefully, she lowers her cheek to the smooth expanse. Slight bristles, tiny breaks in the wood, brush against her skin like a child's lashes, and she inhales, feeling, for the first time in weeks and months, that she might be happy.

When she finds Lupin seated, the next morning, drinking his morning cup of tea at the refinished table, she finds that she cannot greet him with her usual silence.

"Was that really the reason- because you're a werewolf?"

He startles, the tea spilling and catching his collar. She watches as responses flash through his expression, the first two more honest and the third decidedly less so. Politeness and a practiced air of acceptance smooth through his lips and gaze in the seconds it takes him to settle his tea cup on its tray.

"Are you that curious?"

She hesitates and then sits across from him, filling the second glass he always prepares for her and she usually ignores. "It just doesn't sound like her. Tonks isn't the sort of person to think like that."

"People change, Hermione, when they become parents. Tiny fears that one might have pushed back and ignored with the help of mental fortitude rush to the forefront when a child's involved."

"What did she say, then, when she left?"

A slight pause, a minimal twitch along the jaw; he notices at last the stain on his shirt and busies himself with dabbing at the damp discoloration. "I left; I wasn't going to force that decision on her."

"Okay, but what did she _say_?"

A wand would serve better than the roughness with which he now treats the stain. Her sudden movement pauses the motions, and he stills entirely when Hermione's hand gently lowers his own. "Professor," she asks, her voice soft in their nearness, "what did she say?"

She watches as he draws within himself, pulling through the memory. His expression cracks from its enforced congeniality and something truer sneaks through. A hardness coats his lips and his eyes meet her own briefly, the reflected emotion more anger than sadness.

"She said she was tired and that she couldn't love me anymore."

She hesitates again, feeling for the first time since the Last Battle, since the end of the war- since she left Hogwarts and the bodies of her friends behind- some small piece of that person she once was. She feels the stupidity of it, even as she speaks. She is getting involved- she is risking her heart and the tender parts of it that she's sworn to protect.

But-

She meets her former Professor's eyes and recognizes the anger there; he doesn't want her to say it, to prod at the truth he's ignoring. He'll fire her, for certain, and tell the Weasleys of her duplicity.

But-

Hermione knows she's right, and she's always been a fool for the truth.

"Did you ever consider that maybe, what she was tired of wasn't loving a werewolf, but maybe just loving you? That perhaps what she wanted in that moment wasn't for you to leave, but to stay and remind her why you're worth caring about?"


	5. Nine-Ten

**A Filled Space**

 **9**

Remus remains in his seat for an hour after she leaves him in the kitchen, her parting words having coated him in a thick rage that forces complete stillness. His anger is his long companion, his friend since youth, and his mastery of it is long since behind him. Remus unclenches his fingers from their grip on his knees, carefully stretching each digit into normalcy.

He allows himself another hour to work out whether his anger is at her or at the possible truth she left him with.

Either way, he decides, she's as nosey and interfering as he remembered. He can recall her childhood impatience, her insistence on pressing certain points and opinions even when social niceties had long since revealed that she should stay quiet. He remembers that night, before the Last Battle, how she insisted that they, the students, be allowed to fight.

It was their school and their lives, too, on the line, she had reminded them. She had revealed nothing, at the time, of how well trained they had been- of how prepared they'd been to take to the front lines and use themselves as a wall between the Dark and principled limitations of the Light.

Many had died, but less than anyone had thought possible.

His life, and Dora's too, and many others' were saved due to her planning and insistence. She had been right, and in that rightness people were saved.

And now she is at it again, attempting to _help_ in that over-obvious way of hers. Remus holds his head in his hands and closes his eyes, inhaling deeply. She truly hasn't changed from that small, wild-haired girl she was all those years ago, who spent nights and days studying to save the life of a hippogriff- who, having learned of his _condition_ , kept his secret and still greeted him with a toothy smile each morning.

He sighs and pushes at the pieces of the puzzle; she frustrates the picture, still, offering only slight glimpses of comprehension, clouded by shades of her younger self.

 _Why_ , he wonders, _is she running away?_

 **10**

Hermione considers the cracked and shattered tile of the parlor room with a tired frown. The smartest way to remove the offending pieces would take the use of her wand, and she, like most days, has left it behind in her bedside table. The less smart route would tack on two more days to her timetable, which would mean two more days having to avoid Remus's constant questioning.

She regrets now her decision to involve herself. He mistook her moment of concern for something of greater meaning and now picks and prods at her hourly. He studies her reactions too closely, and her feelings show too easily.

It won't be long before he stumbles upon it, she knows. He may have already; she cannot discern if his questions are well meant, or simple curiosity.

The first tile wedges off with ease, the second even more willingly. By the hour's end, half the floor is removed, and she smiles, pleased. Perhaps not too much of a delay then, this chore without magic.

"Where are your parents? Muggle dentists, right?"

The smile leaves her, and she peers up from her crouch on the floor to the shadowed lines of his face above her. He stands in the doorway, blocking her escape and the light of the hall beyond it. A trace of panic flits near her spine, and she ducks back down to breath quietly through her mouth.

"You're back at your home, but not with your parents. Did they move?"

This, she decides, is safe enough to answer. "Yes, they emigrated shortly before my seventh year."

"Do they know you're here, instead of your school in Greece?"

This too, she decides, is safe enough to answer. "No, they don't know."

She stares down at her fingers, at the dust and scraped hardwood unearthed from beneath the old tile. The scratch of the wood, stripped and worn from years of tread, feels warm on her skin and she presses her palm flat to it.

"And what would you do, then, if I wrote them?"

Hermione startles, her fingers curling into a fist, when his question comes from near her ear, down at her level on the floor. He kneels beside her, his light hazel eyes intent on her expression. She cannot move, her breath caught on her lips and the walls far too close. He leans in, his too-long hair near enough to brush her cheeks, and without reason, she closes her eyes.

"Hermione-"

But he's already drawn too close, and the blackness of her vision invites the memory's return. The flashes of light and heat, the burn of a curse that scars her shoulder and buries deep into the tree behind her. Laughter cackles to her left and then her right, and she shields without pause, her own spells finding no mark and disappearing into the night of the forest.

' _Little Mudblood- my sweetness! You can't run from me, can't hide from me! I marked you!'_

But she runs all the same, another hex finding home in her knee and she spills into the earth, dirt and damp filling her mouth and blinding her. A deafening _snap_ chills her through and, nearly defeated, she realizes that the sound is her wand and the ice is her heart as it begins to break. Cruel hands pull at her hair and nails sharpened on a silver knife clip into her throat.

' _My sweet, little Mudblood- look at yourself!'_

The spell conjures a mirror and Bellatrix gloats and preens from behind her. Hermione sees the mud across her cheeks, the blood coating her jumper; pain exerts itself at the reminder, and it's as her fingers clench that she's reminded of the broken edge of her wand, gripped in her palm.

' _How fortunate that you should die as you were born- no wizarding death for you, Mudblood!'_

How fortunate, Hermione thinks, that she should grow up as a Muggle and have spent so much of her life without a wand or spells to guide her. How very fortunate indeed that she should know that her wand has more than its magical purpose- how a wand, when broken, can be a blade.

Bellatrix manages a final spell as Hermione sinks the shattered pieces of her wand deep into the madwoman's throat. The spell, shouted mutely, throws her into a deep sleep, and when she wakes some three weeks later, it's to the news that the Light had won, Harry had lived, and her wand had been mended.

She feels the wetness of her cheeks, even as Lupin calls her name from far away, and she can't help but wonder why they all assumed that a fixed wand meant a fixed witch.

Hermione lurches upward, gripping the tiled wall for support and pushes Lupin from her, surprised at the strength in her arms as he stumbles back into the hall. Angrily, she wipes at her cheeks and takes a deep breath. He stares at her, a mix of emotions clouding his features; she takes a second breath and then a third.

Purposely, she reaches back down for her chisel and, without meeting his gaze, she says simply, "You can do as you like, Professor. My parents won't understand anyway; they don't know they have a daughter."


	6. Eleven-Twelve

_For_ _Peque Saltamontes_

 **A Filled Space**

11

"You're strange tonight, friend."

Remus eyes his drink idly, considering taking it and his friend's own, and getting thoroughly pissed. It's been years since he's indulged so, not since his youth, and first it was for fun and then sorrow, and certainly never to run away. "I feel strange, Padfoot."

"Problems with my cousin?"

"No, Dora's kind as always. We're nearly finished with the custody schedule; once the house is done-" Remus drinks deeply; an image of her, cheeks flushed and damp and eyes dark and lost in memory and fear draws up too finely, and he wants the vision gone as much as he wants anything gone. What should only be concern for the girl is laced with a frisson of something darker, and he cannot explain the reaction. "A few more weeks and Teddy will have a home to come to as well."

"Then…" and suddenly, it's as if Sirius knows, which he couldn't, but there's a glint of understanding in his grey eyes and a smirk of male satisfaction on his lips. "... you've met someone else."

A bark of a laugh grips him, and he chokes back another swallow of his liquor, taking pleasure in the burn of it. "It's not that sort of problem."

"I've known you far too long to not recognize when you have a woman on the mind. Anyone I know?"

Remus's eyes flit briefly to his friend's own gaze; he wonders what Sirius would make of the answer. Remus wonders even if his friend has stumbled on it; the attention and focus at which he finds himself stuck to her is full and complete. He thinks of her upon sleeping and searches for her upon waking. He's set aside his questions- for now- but her stubborn avoidance of him is two hundred fold again.

He longs to take her shoulders and shake her, grip her chin and force her to face him.

The physicality of the desire surprises him, and he thinks Sirius may not be far from it. He has a woman on the mind; she is on his mind.

"Sirius, what do you know about Hermione Granger? I heard she's at a school in Greece?"

The wizard stares, his jaw stubborn, and then sighs. "Fine, but don't think I won't bring it up again." Sirius re-fills both glasses and swirls the amber liquid carefully, one broad finger tracing the edge of his glass. "Hermione received a scholarship, for Arithmancy, I believe. The school's a convent of sorts, and all students are required to take a vow of silence their first year- written and verbal, apparently. We'll not hear much from her until next summer."

"She was hurt in the Final Battle, correct?"

"A certain cousin of mine got into it with our girl in the Forbidden Forest. Hermione's knee was blown out and a pretty bad screwbolt curse dug through her shoulder. Her wand must have been damaged in the scuffle; the broken end of it was what killed Bellatrix." Sirius shakes himself and finishes his glass in one smooth draw. "The girl was out for several weeks; Ollivander managed to restore her wand, but it didn't seem to take to her like before."

Remus nods, throwing back his own glass and then gestures for another round. Sirius obliges with ease, a small edge of concern in his eyes as he passes the filled glass back. "Moony, what has you thinking on Hermione Granger?"

It would make sense, Remus knows, to tell his oldest and dearest friend that the child they watched over and guided these past six years is still in England. It would make all the sense in the world to share that she's not well, that something is amiss, and she certainly needs help. Sirius can be trusted; he wouldn't share the news with others, and certainly, two minds are better than one.

Yet-

He has no desire to share her already rare attention; she's his puzzle to solve.

"Nothing really; just hadn't seen her in a while."

They talk then, of other things, and in the end, Remus drinks only enough to sleep dreamlessly.

12

"I'm sorry," he tells her immediately, before she even has a chance to remove her coat and gloves. Hermione eyes him cautiously, thinking it a trick first and doubting it even more after.

"I shouldn't have threatened you like that."

She places her coat on the hanger first and considers keeping the gloves on; the house is chilled through, and she wonders if he forgot a fire in his haste to greet her. "You're right," she agrees, "you shouldn't have."

He stares for a moment more, studying her features- looking for something there that confuses her. After a moment more, he gestures toward the hall. "I was going to make tea. Would you join me?"

She declines, mostly to test the sincerity of his words, and when he nods and leaves her, she sighs, brushing her cheeks with the warm wool of her gloves. An hour later, he leaves her a cup outside the parlor, without interrupting, and she sips carefully while enjoying its warmth.

He waits longer the next morning before greeting her. He leads, this time, with the tea, pushing it into her hands and then edging her toward the open chair across from him. She sits, increasingly uncomfortable, as he continues to study her. She wishes she knew what he looked for- his eyes are too steady, too strange in their not-blue, not-green color, and she feels the weight of them on her.

"Your problems with magic- is it because of your wand?"

Her lips purse; the tea is bitter, but she swallows anyway. "Why do you ask?"

He waits before answering, his gaze moving away from her face to the floor, and she's thankful for the break. It is different from when she was younger; his attention, then, was in a classroom or at a dining table. She can think of less than five times that they were ever alone before she began this job, and the strangeness of it bemuses. She is never not aware of him- she is never not certain of where he stands or lingers, his ever-present tea in tow, a cup in hand and a twirling wand in the other.

She does not like the way in which he seems to unbutton her every defense, tacking away at her shields with his eyes and concentrated lips; it is different, Hermione realizes, to be alone with a man when all he cares to focus on is you.

She shivers, and he remembers her.

"I spoke with Dora- I asked her if it was like you suggested. We spoke for a long time, and you were right. . . in parts." He sighs then, his hands scrubbing at his face, drawing down against the thin layer of whiskers that cling along his jaw. The years leave him in the youthful gesture, and she smiles in spite of herself.

"And?" she prompts.

"And, we decided the separation is best. You can love someone and not be meant to live with them, after all."

She shifts, suddenly once again too aware of the kitchen's walls and the short distance of the table between them. His hair, she notices, is far too long for his face; it hides him from her and she's nearly half from her chair to reach for him before she catches herself and pretends at a stretch.

The air is strange, and the tea lingers bitter still against her teeth.

He tries again two days later, this time tempting with better fare of a toast and egg. The napkin at his waist and the pan in his hand endear him enough that she eases into a fonder memory than the usual kind that find her. A Saturday morning, two- maybe three- years earlier: Lupin at the stove, demonstrating how best to flip an egg one-handed, and Sirius with his hand further behind, casting sticking spells that leave Harry's first attempt on the floor and Ron's second on the ceiling.

Perhaps the smile she gives him is fuller than a plate of breakfast warrants; perhaps he quiets more than the tilting of her lips should have caused. The taste is full and heavy, and she remembers another morning, the day in which she gifted her parents their safety and happiness and said her farewells.

Hermione eats slowly and imagines that across the world, they might be enjoying something similar.

"It's not just the wand," she tells him after, as she helps dry the dishes at his side by the sink. "I met with a Healer at St. Mungo's, and it's not that I'm not bonding with my wand. It's my magic altogether- the draw isn't like it used to be."

She pauses, thinking how to explain. "It's like your heart- it beats without conscious thought. You can sleep or swim or whichever, and it'll beat without your direction. Magic is like that, too. But whatever final spell Bellatrix threw at me cut something, and now. . ."

"Is there a cure?" he asks, a strange break to his voice that lifts her eyes to his. She searches his gaze, trying to put a name to the oddness caught there. Sadness and empathy, but something harder, too, an anger-

Hermione looks away and pushes from the counter, focused on her hands at they smooth down the edges of her shirt. "Possibly, but without knowing the spell, it's hard to develop the counter-charm. So for now, it's just time and practice."

She leaves him and the kitchen to finish the parlor, its last touches nearly complete. The tea that greets her that afternoon is sweet when she drinks, and she ignores the swell in her breast at the taste.


	7. Thirteen-Fourteen

_A/N: Thank you for the continued reviews and support. I had something upsetting happen to my family this week, and being able to distract myself with final revisions and your kind comments has been exactly the sort of diversion I needed. Just for reference, we have six more double-chapters after this, plus an epilogue._

 _Warnings for unwanted advances; nothing too graphic._

 _For_ _Peque Saltamontes_

* * *

 **A Filled Space**

* * *

 **THIRTEEN**

Remus thinks it an interesting thing that his comrades, friends and co-workers, so easily forget that he was once a Marauder. The Map and the pranks; the quests and late-night dares- he was not just a reluctant participant to the mayhem. He was not one to enter a water halfway; he thinks and then commits, and nearly never regrets later.

And so when he wakes one morning to a sky slick with sleet and ice, and he thinks of slippery pavement and Hermione's shoes, he is not surprised that his mind connects the dots to a dangerous plan.

He decided, after she finally told him of her mystery, that the string that kept bringing him back to thoughts of her and concerns of her was that she required a solution. An intelligent mind requires challenge, and hers is the sort of puzzle that draws him to his library and centers his dreams on thoughts of snapping bones and broken bonds.

Remus sees almost nothing of her in the week that passes after their breakfast; he spends it in his library, and then in Sirius's, and even one night's trip to Hogwarts. The writings on magical bonds are slim, but he finds most of the studies are in children. Wizards, when still babes, channel powerful magic, but they do so without direct will.

The magic can come, but only in moments of high emotion: great passion or sadness; great anger or fear.

The idea is too perfect, too clever to ignore, and he watches through the window for her approach and then thinks of what to best trigger the reflex. He thinks she needs only a single moment of spontaneous magical reaction to feel reassured; he is certain that the single moment will trigger later ones. His theory is simple: the bond is not damaged, simply dormant.

But what to kick it off?

It only takes a few hours of poking in the attic to find his DADA chest, and then only another hour still to remember the code to unlock the lower chamber of it. Remus doesn't wait for the boggart to shift into a proper form before binding it to the hollowed out book he prepared earlier. It is near dark when he finally stumbles out from the attic and down to the ground floor.

She's already left, and when he stages the book near the door, balanced so as to fall upon her entrance, he does not think twice. He does not regret, he does not second-guess. It's a chance and a dare, but Remus has a gambler's heart.

It will work, he is convinced.

* * *

 **FOURTEEN**

* * *

Hermione does not notice the stack of books that block the doorway, not at first, and so when they tumble across the polished floor, she only sighs and begins to restack. Her smile, half-fond, half-bothered, catches as a pair of black boots pause beneath her gaze. She traces the legs that follow them, her eyes lifting until they meet with a face so familiar, so dear that she cannot help but cringe at the hate gathered there.

Hatred for her, she imagines.

"So this is where you've been hiding?" Harry's voice is as it was nearly eight months earlier, brittle and tight. He stands firm as she slowly rises, leaving her little space to back into, the door behind her and only him to her front. "I suppose you thought me too thick to figure it out."

"N-no," she stammers. "I didn't think that at all, Harry, I just needed some time-"

"Save it." He pushes into her, not pausing until she's forced against the door, pinned without space to escape or run. "I've always hated how easily you lie to me."

She can't disagree; she can craft the greatest deceptions, when forced to it. Leading witches to angry Centaurs, or tricking hapless Muggles into donating extra coin; Hermione is clever and quick, and people trust her too easily.

"You didn't have to go this far, though, you know." He fingers a strand of her hair, his fingers icy on her skin, and speaks into her ear. "If you had waited that night, long enough for me to finish, you would have learned the truth of it."

 _Too much to drink that night, too much to celebrate and grieve, and when all had left to sleep or find others means of solace, it had been only her and Harry left in the Grimmauld study, the fire low in the hearth and his collar unbuttoned and wrinkled._

"Did you think it meant I loved you- did you think I was trying to confess?"

 _Her wine spilled, the dark red too awful of a color for the jumper to remain, and with a laugh, she tore it from her, the fire greedy in its appetite. The cold air bit at her bared shoulders, the thin straps of her camisole a beige stain against the tanned expanse of her skin. He had kissed her there, first, a lingering touch on her shoulder that slowly spread to her throat and then her cheek. The fire groaned, and its flames shifted_.

"I was drunk, Hermione, and in need of a distraction."

 _The elven wine left her dizzy, and she thought the lips an invention, at first. The vague disconnect between the green eyes that clung to her and the mouth that whispered her name against her too warm skin felt wrong; she felt strange._ Hermione _, he begged her,_ Hermione _. She considered it for a brief second; he is her best friend, the closest piece of a family she has left. He is warmth and comfort and goodness, and she could think of a thousand reasons to agree, to return the words he cannot manage to say._

"If you weren't such a prig about it, we might have had a good time. Instead, you dreamt up some fake scholarship to what? Run away from me and clean houses?"

 _When he lowered his mouth to hers, when he moved his lips and sighed into her breath, she did not move. And when he finally lifted and found her eyes, she could only show him the truth of it: She did not love him, not in this way. She left first, the green dust lingering behind her, and she began her plans that night._

"What'll you do now, then? I know your secret." Harry leers down at her, his expression more grimace than smile, as his fingers dig more deeply into her hair. She shudders at the touch, a deep awful fear beginning to settle in her stomach. _Remus_ , she thinks dimly, _where is Remus?_

She feels his lips settle, cold and hard, near her ear. "Perhaps if we pick up where you left me?"

He chases his words with direct action, his free hand tilting her chin toward him, his thumb across her lips. She shudders, fists clenching, but remains still. Harry would never hurt her, she is certain. Not her friend, not the boy who once claimed her as his savior.

But the man whose fingers tighten on her skin, his nails digging into her jaw- he shows little concern when she cries out, or when she finally turns her fists against his chest. He laughs and mocks. "What sort of witch leaves her wand at home? Hermione, you're such a Muggle sometimes."

He stills her struggle and once more turns her face toward his; his kiss bruises, his teeth sharp and the metallic tang of blood fills her mouth. He is strong- stronger than she remembers. Her Harry is gentle and kind, quick to spark, but never too long to dwell in it. He forgives, and certainly, always forgives her.

Harry _loves_ her, and yet-

This Harry, he-

Hermione gasps, the hands pinning her vanish in a whirl and whoosh of dust and ether; she stares into the emptied space to the man who stands at the entry's end. His arm is extended, his wand brandished, and eyes fixed, his parted lips finishing the spell distantly.

Her ears hum with the sound of it, the meaning slow to arrive.

" _Riddikulus!_ "

A string coils in her stomach and pulls taut. "W-what-"

"Hermione, I'm sorry! I-" His wand falls from his fingers, and Hermione watches as he raises trembling hands to his face. "I didn't know they could do that, that they could touch others."

"Boggarts are dark creatures, Professor. They'll adapt as the magic suits them." The tensed strumming fills her blood and her ears rush with the song of it. "Dark magic amplifies their effects, and as you well know, I'm cursed."

He replies, but the words disappear into the new noise that consumes her world. He had tricked her, hid the creature to what? Hurt her? Test her? To what end then? What does he _want_ -

The blue fire that circles her hands is an old friend, her earliest piece of mastered magic, and she has missed the flames that so comforted her loneliest times at Hogwarts. The humming is lovely, she thinks, as the fire trails up her arms and into her chest. The warmth swells, consuming her, and she smiles through it, her anger dissolving into a black bliss as the fire surges through her.

Remus calls to her, but she is tired now-

So tired.

She sleeps and for the first night in months, she does not dream.


	8. Fifteen-Sixteen

_A/N: Starting with the next double-chapter, there are more mature references. I'm not a particularly graphic writer, but nevertheless, the references are there._

 _For Peque Saltamontes_

* * *

 **FIFTEEN**

* * *

The door closes with a hushed whine, and Sirius stands with his back to it, lips thin and expression inscrutable. Remus feels the edges of his friend's anger, the tide and tow of it ebbing closer to shore. He throws back his second thimble full of the hour, longing for the liquor to take hold, to numb the shaking from his hands and still the churn of his stomach.

 _What had he done?_

He avoids his friend's unvoiced accusations and pours another glass. Sirius settles loudly across the table, knocks the glass from Remus's hands, and then snatches the bottle directly, drawing deeply from the lip, breathless and chest heaving when he replaces it twenty seconds later, emptied.

Sirius's hands, large and thick-fingered, fist on the table top. He stares, lips wet from drink, in tempered silence. His flickering eyes still carry lingering measures of his years in captivity, small smudges of madness cloaked in the cinder and soot of his irises. His censure rolls forward, and Remus balks at it.

"It was a good plan- a _sound_ plan," Remus insists, more to himself than his friend. "I didn't do it on a lark, Padfoot, or for some cheap thrill-"

"You didn't do it from the goodness of your heart, either, man."

Remus pauses, words of rejection on the edge of his mouth, and then exhales, harshly. "Does that matter? I thought it could help- that with a bit of a nudge, her magic might spark back as a defense mechanism."

Sirius laughs, the sound humorless and canine in its brevity. "You sparked her up, all right. I had forgotten about those blue flames of hers. Such a clever girl."

"Brightest witch of her age."

"Right, well, your experiment could have killed that. Her magical reserves are nearly depleted. She'll sleep through to morning, at least, and even then, she'll need strengthening potions and something for the headache for the next few days."

"I-" Remus pushes back from the table and paces, the movement more freeing than the forced containment of the chair's false civility. "I would _never_ hurt her."

Sirius leans back, his dark eyes watchful and knowing in a way Remus instantly dislikes. His friend's gaze speaks to things Remus would rather not put to words- to the thoughts and occasional pictures that greet him in the early mornings when he's not yet awake, but not asleep. The girl is lovely, unduly so, and with an easy kindness that would undo any man, let alone one such as him.

"I'm your oldest friend, Moony. Did you think I wouldn't put it together?"

Remus stills from his pacing and considers the floor, the stain still bright and gleaming after Hermione's handiwork. "She's so young, Padfoot, and her boggart- Harry is in love with her. _James's_ son is in love with the girl. What would you have me do?"

Sirius sighs and eyes the empty bottle, regret obvious in his expression. "Harry can handle himself, and he seems fairly occupied with that Weasley girl. Love is a lazy word for the feelings of an eighteen-year-old."

"That's not how it was for James." _How it is for me_. "Or Lily-"

"- Lily Evans was an incredible woman, but you can't tell me that you thought what she felt for James was the same as what Prongs felt for her." Sirius stands, a slight shake in his stature the only evidence of the bottle of liquor he swallowed. "She loved our boy, certainly, but that wellspring of emotion takes feeding and tending. Don't use Harry as an excuse."

Remus does not reply and remains slouched in his kitchen long after his friend leaves, mutterings about potions and returning in the morning dimly fading behind the wizard. The day's sunlight stretches, its shadows growing ever longer as the evening approaches, and he stares still at the door across the hall. The worn oak paneling still waits for Hermione's attentions, and he can picture her scraping and sanding at its surface, lips at peace and eyes distantly lost in thought.

His hand perches on the handle hesitantly; it turns, and he follows past it.

Pale blue flames flit from her fingertips, and her hair, free from its normal pins and confines, covers the pillow in a stretch of tangled, earthen brown. Her mouth moves, silent words crossing her lips, and behind her eyelids, she chases after a hidden dream. Remus takes the seat next to her and allows himself the selfish moment to consider her fully, as she seldom grants when awake and at work.

Too young, he thinks, to have so occupied his thoughts. Far too young for a grown man, her once professor, to stare at so openly, so longingly. The sting of her blue flames pinches his fingers, but he grasps her palm between his own, and lets the warmth of her skin block the self-disgust that swells when he finally admits to it:

His puzzle and conundrum-

His once-student and near-ward-

War hero and recent child-

He cares for her, and he does not hide from it.

* * *

 **SIXTEEN**

* * *

The dream is distant, disappearing from her consciousness as her eyes lift to a softened morning sun and the taste of a bitter potion on her lips. A rough voice helps her to sit, and she feels the dream fading ever farther, the warmth and fullness of it snatched away, as the potion makes its way past her mouth and down her throat. The dizziness fades as well and Hermione opens her eyes fully, the dream lost and reality returned.

Sirius Black pushes a second potion to her lips, and then a third.

She sleeps again, wakes and drinks, and sleeps more. The dreams drift to her, migrating birds on a constant rotation of delivery or retreat, and something stirs deep within her breast when she wakes on the third morning, weak and dizzy, but determined.

Sirius returns her wand to her reluctantly, and she ignores his protests as she stumbles from the bed, her breath shallow and quick. She finds the wizard in the kitchen, a half finished cup of tea before him and a book newly opened. She watches as first relief and then shame crosses his features, but Remus doesn't look away.

She considers him, the worn-out jumper with thinned elbows and the three pale scars that etch his left cheek. She follows the wrinkles of his collar to the long line of his throat and hard stretch of his jaw. She feels a tremble of something strange in her chest, a heat filling her cheeks. His lips, thin and pressed and held in a way that speaks of words he's holding back, evoke a shudder that she rejects instantly.

Her magic recognizes him in a way that had only been but a small whisper before. She finds his hazel eyes, watches as they question and provoke, in the way they always do, and she grips her wand, decided.

"I quit."

Her disapparation is silent and instantaneous, the whirl of her returned magic thick in her wake.


	9. Seventeen-Eighteen

_A/N: Mature references begin with this double-chapter._

 _For Peque Saltamontes_

* * *

 **SEVENTEEN**

* * *

Pathetic, really, the way he follows, half a block's distance behind her, as she steps carefully in heels made for a different sort of woman, in a dress that does not protect from the chilled November air. Remus knows that her choices that evening are purposeful; she is speaking to him with each pointed refusal to turn around; she is shouting her anger with each pub window that she lingers near, searching through thick glass for the right sort of patrons.

He cannot think of a better way to punish him than this muted roar of defiance.

All of his earlier attempts to apologize, to call on her attention, to beg a few minutes had been rebuffed, with silent relish, and even when he attempted to draw on their years of acquaintance, of the shared familiarity those years had given them, she had merely shut her parents' door. It was only when his temper finally escaped him that he finally evoked a response. He'd called her a child, and with that word her eyes had narrowed, and an hour later found her on the cold street and him following behind.

She disappears into a seedy corner doorway, a single letter from the pub sign with bulbs enough to be lit. He slinks in after her and slouches to the back. Her dark eyes, so tempered to kindness, flash with something foreign when he gives way to her avoidance.

She orders a drink, the short squat glass filled with a colorless liquid that she swiftly knocks back. A second is sent her way, a smiling blond in its wake. The man asks her a question and when she laughs, the sound is a strange one. It falls falsely and yet the man takes no notice.

Remus watches as, after an hour more of chat and drink, the man whispers in her ear and Hermione nods, her expression resolute.

He follows again, obedient to his self-made promise to remain at a distance. But she challenges him- she does not wait for the Muggle's flat. It's her arms that pull the blond into a side alley; it's her fingers that caress through his trousers. Remus should leave; he should turn and vanish back to his home, block his ears and blind his eyes- but he remains, the cold air thick with the sounds of faint sighs and rustling clothes.

The man satisfies himself in her hands, and when he moves to return the favor, Hermione leaves.

Remus waits for her to make her way to another alley, to return home and a door that closes too loudly for nonchalance. His breath catches as she passes him, her eyes a scorching glance of reproof, and draws the back of her hand purposely across her mouth. His fists clench, his chest thick with a buzzing fire that has no tinder, no fuel beyond his own muscle and bone.

He follows still, as she returns to her parents' house and its magicked rose trees, and he begins to understand. The lights follow her ascent within the house, the switches flipping on and off as she trails up the staircase and down a hall, the final light coming to the corner bedroom. He watches as her outline rests near the curtained window, the faint lines of her hands on the cloth.

She is watching, too, and Remus- he begins to understand.

She's drawn a line, and he must choose whether to cross and follow her over it.

* * *

 **EIGHTEEN**

* * *

The agency sends its sixth message, the owl carrying it angry enough to nip at her fingers and draw blood even after she offers it a treat in thanks. The letters are cordial enough, she supposes, but the latest letter contains phrases like ' _breach of contract'_ and ' _damages_.' Hermione balls up the parchment and aims for the dust bin, just missing its edge.

A howler is used on the tenth attempt, along with a formal Ministry summons regarding magical misconduct. It's this final threat, of a public remand and equally public hearing regarding her use of latent magic- her damned blue flames!- that finally pushes her into writing a response. She is equal parts wrathful and terrified; it has been two months since she last saw him, following her in the dark. It has been three months since he tricked her.

She can't forgive him, and yet she wants nothing more than to see his tired, curious eyes.

Had it affected him, then, when she'd allow the odd stranger to kiss her in the moonlight? Had it revolted him, or enraged him? Had he been tempted to violence, or merely driven to sickened pity?

Hermione doesn't know when she regressed to sixth year antics, but there's a cruelty in her heart that wants only to draw his blood and watch it drip, slowly and thickly, until it bubbles about her ankles and paints her toes. He is forever calm and undisturbed, and she hates the thought that his interest- his pique of concern- is some latent paternalistic care. She is no child, and surely, now, he must realize it.

When she arrives at his townhouse, her hair tightly bound and her lips drawn in desperate defiance, she can't name the emotion that hits her when she finds the rooms empty. A note waits her in the kitchen, the script familiar and dear. She reads it twice, and then, with a care she allows only because she is alone, she folds it and tucks it near her breast.

The sandpaper is rough against her fingers, and the years of misuse and malcontent disappear from the floorboards; her muscles ache, and in that feeling, she draws back something of herself.


	10. Nineteen-Twenty

_A/N: Mature references abound. Longer double-chapter this go, as we lead up to the final chapters._

 _For Peque Saltamontes_

 **A Filled Space**

* * *

 **NINETEEN**

* * *

Remus traces the evidence of her presence with careful, guarded eyes. Each day leaves yet another imprint of her ministrations: lustrous stairs, replaced drapery, refinished wallpaper- he knows it's a form of self-abuse, allowing her to leave echoes of her touch on every surface. He's been tempted, on more than one morning, to linger beyond the necessary, to find an excuse to have her stumble upon him.

He imagines a likely scenario, pretending slumber in the kitchen with a book, chosen with her interests in mind, propped along his chest. Would she touch his shoulder, or brush his hair from his cheek? Would she linger in the doorway, her dark eyes tracing over his features? Would she wait for him to wake, perhaps speak whatever words she'd silenced and replaced with that outrageous display in an alley with a stranger?

He imagines happier, more advantageous circumstances that would cause them to meet again, and he certainly never imagines it to be the morning after the full moon, as he lay bloodied and exhausted in a heap of his skin and bones. Instead, he wakes to her kneeling form, her horrified expression staring down at the ruin he is the morning after.

Piss and blood, the remnants of his night as a monster without thought, cake his skin, and each of his senses are larger than the last. He smells her, beyond that thick, harried veil of his other self, a lovely perfume of her shampoo and skin; he hears her heart, racing in a steady climb; he watches as her lashes fold and flutter, her eyes wide with concern and pity and something damnably indiscernible.

"Oh, Remus," she whispers, and his name from her lips is everything golden and good.

He is too weak to move, still, but he wishes to know how her skin might feel against his fingers in these early hours when even that sense would be heightened and full. She seems to hear his unspoken wish, and her hands gently cradle his face between her palms, smoothing back his hair from his brow and touching his cheek. He breath catches, and all his blood can feel in that second is her warmth. It fills him and coils near his core, the part of him that is all male recognizing a pull that he hasn't the strength for.

She uses her hands to clean his face, the wet towel soft and lovely, and he fades in and out of sleep as she tends to him. He wakes when the sun is on its descent, the afternoon shadows long against the wall. His potions are lined, in order of taking, beside him, and a stasis charm keeps a bowl of steaming broth warmed and waiting. He listens for the sound of her, the slight murmur of her motions from a floor below, or a room beyond, but the house is silent.

He waits in the quiet, a bitterness and regret rising in his throat. He might be the adult, the grown man, but he thinks himself the greater fool. Remus drinks the potions, and with each swallow, the moon is left behind, the monster stilled, and he sleeps.

It is dusk when he wakes again. Lamplight shows that his room still waits her attentions, the floorboards unpolished and nicked. His bed, a dark oak antique that is older than him by decades is too large for the space, but not too large to hide that she perches at its edge, her brow furrowed and lips pressed.

"You haven't eaten," she reproves, and he struggles to sit up, loathing that he is still so weak to require help even with that small motion. She holds the bowl to his lips and waits as he drinks slowly, the thick salt and heat of the broth lining his lips and coating his throat. She repeats the gesture until every drop has been consumed, and satisfied, she sits back, hands folded in her lap, a considering expression clouding her eyes.

"Hermione-" he begins, voice hoarse and weary.

"Don't apologize, not anymore," she interrupts. He watches as her eyes close and then re-open, as her lips purse and then soften. She exhales and there, littered in the smooth stretch of her cheeks and the shadows under her eyes, is a small happiness. "I forgive you. It was a rotten trick, but I suppose, you meant well. I- well, it was my pride mostly that felt damaged. I had thought we'd become friends, but that made me feel like I was your student again, and I hated feeling that way."

He thinks of the night spent seeing her flirt with a stranger in a bar, of the sounds of her rustling in the dark, of cloth and skin and hushed embraces in the night. He thinks of her flushed face, imagining her reddened throat, and again, his body stirs in anticipation, in hopeful thought. He stares at her lips, feels the tightening in his belly, and wonders if she understands that he's not thought her a child for months now.

His lovely puzzle is all woman, and he longs to demonstrate the truth of that thought more directly.

But she is smiling, her eyes glassy with something soft and kind, and he saves the baser need for a different time. "Can we try again, though? Be proper friends this go around?"

She offers him her hand, her palm upraised and waiting for his returning clasp. He feels her tremble at his touch, feels the slight shudder that makes her tongue catch between her teeth and her gaze skitter from his own. Remus relishes her cool palm against his own, and nods his agreement.

* * *

 **TWENTY**

* * *

The housewarming party is a grand affair, and Hermione times her 'return' from school to coincide with it. Only Remus and Sirius know the truth of how the past nine months have been spent, and she has faith in both well enough to keep her secret. No, her insecurity comes not from being found out, but rather from the friends she's managed to avoid for nearly a year. She dreads that first meeting and nearly flees a half dozen times in the first hour of the party, each floo arrival sending her heart in disarray and her cheeks ablaze.

She meets Remus's gaze from across the party, and it's his calm, patient smile that grounds her feet. That he grants each of his guests the same expression prompts a different sort of dread and awfulness, but that too, she resists. Their reconciliation and tentative friendship is something she values, and she has no desire to ruin it by displaying her immaturity.

That she smiles a little too widely and laughs a little too loudly are things she insists are more nerves than purposeful attempts to call his attention.

Ron greets her with a swinging hug that sends her head spinning and breath catching. He kisses her cheek, grabs her hand, and in moments, she's pushed to his mother's embrace, then first one Weasley brother's, and then another's. She flits from one red-haired man to the next, and Ginny flings her arms around her waist in happy greeting. There's a splitting from her skin that she recognizes as fear; it falls from her, sheds as a second skin, and she feels naked and free in its tumble.

The tears in her eyes, the tightness in her chest- Hermione feels the happiness bubble and bead, and the twisting halt of it is sudden and devastating when she finds herself staring up into pair of bespeckled green eyes. Ron's hand is on her shoulder, and he speaks in his usual booming, flowing way, but she hears only the beating of her heart in her ears, the pounding of her blood in her throat.

Harry smiles, a small thing that is a measure of sadness and fondness, and she is desperate to leave again when his fingers touch her cheek.

"Welcome back, Hermione," he tells her. "I'm glad you're back."

He doesn't linger beyond that, allowing the wellspring of Weasley gab and noise to swallow her back into its hold. Ginny shares the engagement ring that sparkles on her finger, and Mrs. Weasley conjures a diary detailing the pending dates of wedding preparation. Wine is pushed into her hand, and Hermione drinks too greedily. The hours pass, and when she realizes that Harry will not speak to her again, that whatever passed between them that night at Grimmauld place has broken something between them, she escapes to the roof where she knows only those intimate with the house would find refuge.

The night air is warm and thick, the promise of a full summer fresh in the breeze, and she gulps into the inky stretch of it, her hands pressed to her breast. Her head spins, her thoughts unfocused and dancing from one pause to the next, and she feels her knees sway and buckle as nerves and alcohol combine to take full purchase.

"Careful now," Remus says as he catches her around the waist, his chest warm against her cheek. "Too much to drink?"

Hermione shudders and tries to straighten, but he holds her more tightly, and with little real desire to escape, she gentles. "Harry hasn't forgiven me- he'll hardly speak to me!"

She feels him stiffen. "What would you have him say to you, then?"

"I don't know- anything! That he's still my friend, that he's fine, and we're fine. I'd take anything other than this strange politeness." She misses her best friend, misses his kindness and easy conversation. Ron was good for a laugh or a fight, but Harry was the one who offered her consolation when her heart hurt, gave her advice when she hadn't thought to ask.

"And what if he still loves you?"

Hermione laughs, the sound short and disbelieving. Remus's hold on her elbows loosens, and she steps away from him. "Harry doesn't love me, Remus. I'm not sure he knows how to love anyone- romantically, at least... He was just confused. And besides, he's engaged now and he's decided on Ginny, so plainly he's worked it out."

She can't help the bitterness that creeps in; what if she had shared a deeper tenderness for her friend? What if she had allowed a feeling to take hold? How very cruel his actions that night might have been- how very hurt her heart would be in this moment… but she had known, even back in her third year when such feelings had attempted to take root, that she was not meant for the boy-who-lived. Besides- and her eyes flutter to the man beside her, to the cross of his arms and fold of his jaw. She cannot help but admire the stretch of his sleeves, the dusting of light hair along his skin, and the large gather of his powerful hands.

She stares at his fingers, remembering the strength of them as they clutched at her arms, and dizzily, she imagines how they might feel pressed against her bare skin, hot and purposeful. She feels the peak and point of her breasts beneath her dress, feels the heat and damp of her thighs, and once more she longs to escape.

"You sound disappointed."

Hermione inhales slowly, willing away the vivid images from her mind, and focuses instead on the feel of the steel railing beneath her fingers, the rough concrete edge against her forearms. "I'm not, Remus, not in the way that you mean-"

"And in what way do I mean?"

She recognizes his tone then, the controlled anger he shows so rarely, but she doesn't dare meet his gaze, when his knowing hazel eyes are so clever. "Oh please, let's not fight. I'm not upset that Harry's over me- not that I thought it was real to begin with. You're reading too much into-"

But he interrupts again, a habit she hates, with more of his edged control. He hasn't moved, so surely it must be her who's neared, and she's caught on the curl of his fingers, how they're white in the night's darkness, held tautly as if in restraint- but against what, she wonders?

"- then for whose benefit were you going out every night, Hermione?"

She wishes otherwise, but a flush gathers at her throat, spreading to her cheeks and shoulders. _For yours_ , she thinks but doesn't say. _Because I needed something, but I still haven't the name for it_ , she thinks but doesn't add. Instead, she tries for ambivalence, for the worldly sort of carelessness she imagines real women, grown women, have in regards to sex and all that leads up to it. "It was hardly every night. I don't suppose you'd believe it was for my own, though, would you? I'm not a kid anymore, Remus. I have desires like any other adult does."

The air thickens, and she feels the press of a distant storm creeping from the corner of the dark sky. Hermione straightens, pulling at her skirt and smoothing out her shoulders. She's been gone too long, and it's enough that if both she and the host are missing, others are bound to notice. Schooling her emotions, clearing her thoughts, she raises her eyes to meet his own. She means to invite him to return with her, to balance out the strangeness of their conversation with a return to safer words, but the sounds die on her lips.

There's no cleverness there- no calculation. She sees nothing of plans or thoughtfulness in the hard crush of his gaze on her face. There's a dark want lined there, a naked demand of something she can't name, and once again, she's the one who's drawn near. It's her hands that unwind his arms at his side; it's her fingers that trace the buttons that line his chest; it's her breath that glances along his throat; and it's her mouth that whispers his name in his ear, a muted entreaty to react, to take action- to free whatever it is he feels must stay contained.

She feels his breath, hurried and disturbed on her cheek, can smell the salt from the sweat on his throat. Thunder rolls in from the west, and she wants it mirrored here, in her embrace, in his return. But he doesn't move; he makes no response to her gestures, to her more than obvious overtures, and with a sigh, she pulls back, straightening his collar and smoothing his hair. Hermione takes the two steps needed to return their distance to something less intimate and manages a small smile.

There are tears there, held deep within; there's a rejection she must deal with and lay out and cry over. But at present, she merely smiles and shrugs. "Too much wine tonight, I think."

The party continues late into the night, the noise and bustle from its energies in equal parts to the volume of the storm that finally reaches the house. The rain is thick and unrelenting, and in between the flashes of lightening and the echoing thunder, Hermione realizes that Remus never returns. She thinks of him standing still on the roof, immovable, and it's then that she returns to her parents' home and does not cry.


	11. Twenty-one - Twenty-two

_A/N: Same warnings as before. Only one chapter left after this. Thank you for following along with the story. I've loved your reviews and comments- they've been so encouraging. I've copied Peque's original request at the end of the chapter. I'll write more there on it._

 _For Peque Saltamontes_

 **A Filled Space**

* * *

 **TWENTY-ONE**

* * *

His thoughts are lurid as he watches her from the doorway, kneeling beside his bed and focused on patching a piece of floorboard that requires replacing. She's dressed as she usually is, in denim and a faded t-shirt, with her hair knotted at her neck and face without make-up. She looks her age and less some, as her movements displace the edge of her shirt and his eyes catch on the flash of skin that rises with each of her forward gestures. He imagines joining her, pressing his mouth to that stretch of flesh and then swallowing whatever delighted sounds her lips might give him.

He ducks back from the frame, re-arranging his trousers as once again his mind returns him to that of a teenage boy. He is old enough to control himself, but not old enough to not want.

It would be something to diagnose himself as simply being in lust; after all, no one would think twice of a man, let alone the sort that is also a werewolf, wanting the physical attentions of an attractive young woman. Hadn't he already received those same comments before, when Dora announced their relationship? Hadn't he already withstood the knowing glances of his fellow Order members, the looks that said they knew exactly why he was getting involved with the likes of Nymphadora Tonks- a metamorphmagus at that?

Oh the questions people had thought appropriate to ask! Could she change even the size of her breasts at will? Had he ever asked her to take on someone else's appearance? When she went pink, did it _all_ go pink?

He had borne the insinuations and skepticism poorly, and Dora had taken it upon herself to answer those questions directly and loudly whenever she got the chance. She had never been ashamed of their mutual attraction, had never thought it dirty or low, and she never thought him the sort to carry some kind of perversion. Remus had resisted and denied it, but Dora persisted, and she was remarkably easy to love, to fall into.

He'd been selfish to use her as such, to trick them both into thinking that that initial affection and attraction was hardy enough to withstand the realities of a marriage and a child. Hadn't he run when she gave him the news? Hadn't he continued running even after having returned?

He is selfish now, too, he realizes. He is greedy, because he knows it's more than just lust- it's more than his thoughts in the shower, when he takes himself to hand and imagines her mouth, warm and wet; it's more than regretting having not seized her hands when they first coasted along his shirt buttons and pushing the digits lower, to the answering hardness of his flesh. It's far more than a passing affection and admiration.

He thinks it's love, and the desire to flee is strong.

But Remus is at the doorway again, watching as she kneels beside his bed and longing to reverse their positions. He can picture her spread along his quilts, her legs bared and his mouth at her core, bringing her to bliss; he can imagine her eyes darkening and her skin flushing, and he wishes to know how far her experiences have brought her. Would he be the first to kiss her there? Would he be the first to taste her as she bends and breaks?

He doesn't step back when she looks up, noticing him at last. Her eyes, wary and uncertain, wait for him to speak, and he regrets again not having kissed her on the roof.

"Would you stay for supper?"

Her eyes soften, and when she agrees, he feels only greedy relief.

* * *

 **TWENTY-TWO**

* * *

She makes an excuse to leave early and then return later, but the excuse is a lie, and instead she dashes for her closet, hating everything and wasting entirely too much time. The dress she chooses is an older one, meant for a Christmas service and far too hot for mid July, but the green is crisp on her skin, and with her hair down and tangled over her shoulders, she thinks it will have to do.

Her lippy is her mother's and a wrong shade for her coloring, but the tissue removes most of its harshness, and when Hermione frowns into her mirror, she hopes that this dinner is more than just a meal.

Remus cooks well, and he sets the table with what she knows is his better china. The sight of it, of him tasting from a simmering pot on the stove, of his hair whisked back from his brow, his shirt changed for something newer and less worn- she feels the burst of her heart, the heavy beat of its happiness, and she is thankful for his silent smile, his careful greeting that is all gaze and warmth, because she couldn't speak now, even if it her life depended on it.

 _Oh_ , she thinks. _Oh_ , she breathes. This is more than wanting him to press her to the wall, more than his mouth on her throat or her hands on his skin. Hermione exhales and counts, until the tears are pressed back and her magic stills. This, she thinks, is something far more dangerous.

He asks about her parents, and she tells him, as she's told no one else, of their new life in Australia, of their clean home and booming practice. He doesn't ask about their memories, or her own guilt in their loss, and instead, his hand rests on her own, briefly. He tells her of his mother, of his father; he speaks of that awful night when he was first bitten and how, in his thoughts, he still cannot distinguish between the horror of that moment and the anguish of his father's reaction.

He speaks, his voice low and quiet, and she curls her fingers through his.

They clear the table, and she helps dry the seven or eight odd dishes that made up their meal. His hands linger on her own between each passing, and she wishes there were more, an extra fork or glass, anything to prolong the continued connection. She asks about Teddy, and he laughs, his eyes lightening in a way she rarely sees. The realization that among the many things Remus is to her, that he is also a father swells the growing feeling in her breast further.

 _Oh_ , she realizes. This thing, between them both, this is-

He brings her to the library, sits her beside the fire and then fills the odd space of silence with offering her first tea and then biscuits, but she hasn't the taste for either now. The dress is too warm for the weather, but her skin chills beneath it. Surely he must hear the way her heartbeat races- surely, he must sense that she's waiting, but he's holding his elbows again, his fingers taut guardians of restraint.

It's the clock in the hall that stirs her, and with a smile that she knows much show her disappointment, she turns her face up to his. "It's late."

He nods, not meeting her eyes, and she thinks that men, even grown men, are still much like boys, ever divided in their wants and forever mistimed. "I'll walk you home," he offers, but she's already shaking her head, her smile growing fond.

"I can Apparate now, remember?" A part of her wishes she couldn't, though, wanting instead to draw out their evening, to have him walk her to the floo point, to give her a few more minutes to work up the courage to kiss his cheek and touch his hand again.

"I remember." But his eyes are on the fire still, his shoulders tensed, and she doesn't wait for his farewell before she leaves. Her Apparation, loud and careless, brings her off point, her bare legs catching the rough edge of a rose tree, and she's torn between destroying the hateful plant and sitting in the damp grass and crying. Stupid man, she thinks. Wonderful man, she knows.

His Apparation is far quieter than her own, and Hermione can only stare up into his moonlit face as he kneels beside her, knees stained by the night dew. She tries to speak, but his lips are finally there, warm and firm and aligned along her own. His hands catch in her hair, and she's pulled into his lap, to the firm evidence of his thoughts and feelings as his mouth slants across her breath. She sighs into his taste, welcomes the search of his tongue, and presses closer to the heat of his maleness on her thigh.

"Remus," she whispers when his mouth moves from her lips to her throat, when his hands tug at her curls and insist on easier reach. A coiling in her thighs tightens, and she's exploring now, too- feeling beneath his shirt, tracing the rough, patched skin that lines his back. He hisses into her shoulder, and when she takes the tender edge of his ear in her lips and presses with her teeth, he stills her, drawing back with a dancing breath and bright eyes.

"Darling girl," he tells her, and she hears the want, hears the desire in the short words. "I'd like to see you again. Tomorrow?"

"Now," she says, and his lips curve, his eyes warming and weakening, and she uses her hand to tempt him further, cupping the length of him lightly with trembling fingers.

"Tomorrow," he repeats. "I want to do this right."

And even though she's shaking with want and expectation- and even though she knows if she pressed, if she moved her hands just so, if she kissed his throat and bit his shoulder that he would weaken further and she'd have her way- she agrees. He kisses her slowly, gently, and despite his words, his fingers linger at her waist when he helps her back to her feet.

"When tomorrow?"

He pauses, his gaze lingering along her hair, and he sighs as he touches the strands, catching an edge between his fingers. "I have a few errands in the morning, but I'll be free by noon."

Hermione nods, and they both laugh when neither leaves. It's an hour still before he goes, the moon having slid behind the clouds, and when she slips into bed, she hugs her pillow close. Now that she knows the feel of him- now that she knows the taste of him on her tongue, she knows that this thing shared between them-

It's something fine and tangled, deep and dear; she wants to use the word, and it feels silly even to think it, but her lips shape the four letters, and her silent whisper fills her dreams with only him.

* * *

 _ **A/N Part Two:**_

 _Back in September 2014, Peque sent me a PM, after having finished my story 'Missed', with awfully kind words and a request for a story. Her prompt follows, and you'll see that I totally did not do as she requested, at least, I think, not in the details. I'll admit, the Hermione I've crafted internally doesn't quite mesh with the idea of an unwilling prostitute. I could sooner picture her picking up the trade voluntarily, but that would be a different sort of story, and I really liked the idea Peque gave me. I immediately thought of Hermione being in hiding, engaging herself in something far more modest than expected of her, and Lupin stumbling upon her, and in his usual way, trying to solve the problem. I wrote in small bits and pieces, thus the drabble-chapters at times, and it was in the past couple of months that I really picked up steam, finally finishing it after almost three years of random attempts._

 _So Peque, thank you for the wonderful idea. I really enjoyed where it took me, and I hope it made you happy to read it play out._

 ** _"..._** that cliche thing where Hermione could be a prostitute (like, a brilliant child who didn't get the chance to study) and Lupin not a "customer", but maybe a teacher to her? It could include Teddy, too."


	12. Epilogue

_A/N: Thanks again for all of the support and comments. If anyone has story requests or the like, please share! I love prompts and tend to write better with them anyway._

 _For Peque Saltamontes_

* * *

 **A Filled Space**

* * *

 **Epilogue**

* * *

She's attempting a breakfast when Remus stumbles in from the floo, his clothes wrinkled and his face tired. He scoops up his son and handles his breakfast, and as he tends to the clean-up, she studies his expression. Beyond the usual weariness, there's a gladness, a soft glow of something not unlike the softness in his eyes when he holds his son, or speaks of his youth. Tonks waits until Teddy is fed and happy and busied with a truck that sends him into fits of laughter, before taking his hands and forcing him to speak.

She listens, her head tilted and lips curved. She listens as he describes the past year, his slow attraction and then final admission. He doesn't spare any details, and she's thankful for the honesty. Before they were married, before they tumbled into bed and each other, they had been friends who could speak freely- she of her family and Auror struggles, and he of his fears and hopes. She wonders if the feeling that brought them to bond and handfast and bring a child in the world is at all similar to the rush that alights him now.

She shouldn't compare one love to the other, but she feels envy as she listens to her once husband describe how he's fallen in love with someone else.

"I want to do this properly," he tells her.

"Still worrying over what others might think?" she teases.

"Not of me-"

"Oh I know, Remus. You've never thought of yourself very highly. I had hoped I could change that, but…" She glances toward the floor pen, to where their son gurgles and bubbles, his hair a green bright enough to rival his godfather's eyes. She had hoped for many things, and as her mother's told her in the times since, men should be loved and not changed.

Tonks had always thought love would be enough to cause the change needed to sustain it; she wonders if Hermione Granger knows a secret Tonks does not.

"Listen," she implores at last, cupping his hands to her cheeks and forcing his gaze on hers. "Don't run away this time. Hermione's a hardy girl, but if what she's feeling is at all what I think it might be, you'll damage her."

She watches as guilt lines his eyes, as his lips draw downward, and the swell of affection and care is maternal and protective as she pulls him to her embrace. "Remus, if you're looking for my permission, you're being silly. You're my son's father and my friend. I only want you to be happy, truly happy."

She shushes his apologies, feels his tears wet her shoulder, and rubs his back in tender, smooth circles. Poor child, she thinks, and in the slow sigh that she swallows, Tonks feels something click back into focus, a shift in her heart that feels much like peace. Their son's laughter echoes into the kitchen, and silently, she wishes her former partner well.

May she have the same, she hopes.

* * *

 **Epilogue**

* * *

He watches his wife frown at her roses, a gloved hand inspecting the dark green stalks and lips muttering as she scrawls small details in the black notebook that she uses to track all of her plants. He replaces his glasses and continues reading, enjoying the crisp breeze and thinking mildly of what they might have for supper that evening. The neighbors were on holiday again, and the girl they used to house-sit was seen earlier that morning.

He thinks to invite the young woman over to join them. She's a smart, young thing, and when she beats him at backgammon, he's reminded of his wife in their university days. He decides on a salad and fish on the grill, and his wife happily rings over the invitation later that afternoon.

Wendell's surprised when the girl brings a man with her, certainly closer to Wendell's age than hers. He feels suspicious when the man's hand lingers on the girl's elbow, and even though he knows the girl little beyond her occasional visits, Wendell thinks it important that he quiz the man on his intentions.

"You know Jean long, Mr. Lupin?" he asks with little preamble.

A curious smile twitches along the man's lips. "Yes, several years."

"And your relationship with her is that of, what, chaperone? Uncle?"

The man's smile grows, and his lightly colored eyes glance over to where Wendell's wife and the girl murmur in the kitchen. "I can rightly say that my feelings for Jean are not at all of the familial type, Mr. Wilkins."

Wendell frowns, not caring for the obvious amusement being shown his way. He leans forward, hands pressing back at his thick hair, hair that, if left to grow too long, kinked and tangled in a way not unlike the girl he feels such a misplaced sense of protectiveness for. "I don't find any of this very funny, Lupin. Jean's a lovely, young girl, and I mean to know your intentions."

"You'll find it strange, my saying so, but I think Jean would be very happy to know you care enough to ask." The man leans closer as well, his light eyes intent and serious for once, and in a voice that sounds so very different from the diffident tones used since entering, he says, "I love Jean, and I mean to ask her to marry me- at least, once I'm certain she'll say yes."

"Marriage, you say?"

"She certainly deserves better than me, I know, but as you say, she is lovely, and I'd be a fool to think to not take a chance."

Wendell studies the man carefully, the strange scars that mar his cheeks and worn quality of his clothing. There's a shabby veil about him, in his dress and the hold of his shoulders, but Wendell sees something beyond that, a quiet assurance. This is a man, Wendell thinks, who can be stubborn given the right sort of incentive.

"All right, Mr. Lupin, I suppose I can accept that. I'm not sure what Jean's told you of us, but Monica and I think of Jean a bit like a daughter. I'll expect an invitation to your wedding."

Happiness is bright again in the man's eyes as he shakes Wendell's hand, and the strength in his palm helps smooth whatever lingering doubts Wendell might have. He watches the two of them, his Jean and this Lupin throughout the evening, watches the way in which Jean insists on Lupin eating a second helping and how Lupin seems distracted by every sip she takes from her glass, every small gesture of her fingers.

They're a couple in love, and he tells his wife so later that night, as they ready themselves for bed. "Of course they are," his wife replies, her dark eyes mirthful. "Jean tells me that he used to be her teacher. A professor's aid is a bit like a teacher, don't you think?"

And she reminds him, with a long, minty kiss of why he first fell for her when she stepped into his laboratory session all those years ago, young and bright and far too lighthearted for a serious post-graduate.

* * *

 **Epilogue**

* * *

The wedding is larger than he'd have thought she would like. He spies her parents, under their different names, laughing with Arthur and Molly, and he feels an emotion not unlike guilt hit him in the gut when he thinks of all that she kept from him. His own wedding is on its third delay, but he doesn't want to think of that mess, not now when he has free range of an open bar and his best mate keeps him in steady cups.

Harry drinks from his fourth of the night, and watches as Remus holds Hermione close on the dance floor, their silhouette a curved line in the floor's shadows.

"You ever going to fix that?" His godfather nudges his elbow, and Harry struggles to remain balanced. His tolerance is low, and he feels his age yet again, hating it and dispassionately hating most everything else as well.

"Fix what?" he asks, pretending ignorance.

"Whatever happened between you and the bride, son. Moony knows something of it, and I suppose I know enough as well, but don't you think you've drawn this out too long?"

"I haven't done anything. She's the one who won't look at me." And she won't, not in the way she used to, with a steady belief and care that made him feel alone in the world, a shining star in a dark sky that she relied on to guide her. Her eyes look on him as she would Ron, with kindness and exasperation and good humor, but not what he's hoping for.

Sirius drinks slowly from the clear liquid that makes up his tall glass. "Do you love Ginny?"

He chokes, the fire whiskey burning as it tilts up through his nose. He sputters and is near tears when he finally clears his throat and stares, suddenly frightened and exposed. "Of course I do!"

"Then stop delaying your wedding, get over whatever you're holding against Hermione, and grow up."

Harry takes the fifth glass when it's offered to him and finds his fiance in the crowd of dancers. She's with her oldest brother, who spins and dips her as she laughs and reddens in the heat of the sudden motion. Her dress is the wrong color for her hair, but he knows it's one her mother made her, and he feels a sickening thickness in his stomach. He'll hurt her, he realizes. He probably already has.

And if he marries her, he'll ruin the woman who smiles so easily and laughs so fully and has dreams of joining the professional leagues one day.

Sirius follows him when he stumbles over past the wedding tent and into the bushes of the far yard; his godfather claps his back as Harry empties his stomach, tears clouding his eyes and nose runny. How did he muck it up so badly? First Hermione… and now Ginny. Had there ever been a woman he'd care about that he didn't hurt?

"It'll be hard, but you have to be honest, Harry. Tell Hermione the truth and then let that wound close over and seal. You'll break Ginny's heart, but that too will mend. There are men who'll love her the way she deserves. And then you-"

Harry glances up to his godfather's features, still handsome but worn. "What'll I do?"

"You'll come with me. There's a place I went, that first year after escaping-" A distant look, vaguely happy and steeled with something harder crosses Sirius's expression. "It'll do you good."

And Harry believes him. It takes two weeks to run through the list, but he follows his godfather's advice. Hermione cries and hugs him, but her words are exactly as he expects. The sting of her rejection is less so, and the regret he feels from the way Ginny's open, surprised eyes melt into horror and grief is far more painful. He apologizes to her parents, apologizes to her brothers, and feels the worse when Ron pulls him to his chest for a long embrace before shoving him out the door.

He spends his first week on Sirius's island in fitful slumber, and when he wakes, pale and starving, his godfather teaches him to fish. A year passes with little marking it, but Harry feels the changes in himself. More than the darkening of his skin from days spent in the sun and sea, more than the quiet of his voice from nights spent retracing his childhood, more than the stories he learns from his godfather, the stories of his parents and their parents, and the whole generation that left him behind- he feels the changes in his heart.

The gnawing want is appeased.

He thinks, perhaps, he's finally found what it is to be content.

Hermione's letter comes to him by way of an exhausted golden owl. Her script, unbound by a restriction on feet or inches, loops and entices him with news of the people he left behind. She writes of Ginny's engagement, and Ron's newest romance. She tells him of Teddy's latest exploits and Remus's new job at Hogwarts. She shares, near the end, after a blot that speaks of hesitation, that she carries a new life in her womb.

Will he come home, she asks him. Will he return to them?

It's how easily he agrees that assures him he's healed.

* * *

 **Epilogue**

* * *

The swell of her belly makes his usually practiced movements clumsy, but she laughs and sighs into his mouth as he finally slips into her warmth, their joining catching their breaths as it always does. That first time, nearly two months after their first kiss, had been frenzied and rushed and perfect, but he prefers their gentler moments to the fast fulfillment their mutual attraction occasionally demands. He prefers to watch as her mouth parts with each slow thrust; he prefers to feel the aching build to her tightening satisfaction.

He prefers to savor her every reaction, to draw out each second until she can only think of him, can only breathe if it's him who grants her air.

"Remus," she says, voice breaking, "please-"

And he does please, he lifts her leg and pushes deeper, angling further, and using his fingers in a way he knows will send her spinning and breathless. Her lips try at words, but she's incoherent, and he chases after her loveliness with a gratification of his own. He kisses her neck and tucks the damp strands of her hair past her ear, freeing the length of her soft skin to his breath and attention.

She smiles, tired and worn in the best sense, and Remus traces the arc of her breasts down to the curve of her stomach and the life enclosed there. He had seen the fear in her eyes when she first told him, the weak fear that he might react as he did once before, but his heart is settled. He touches the skin that separates him from his second child, and he can only be thankful.

"I love you, Remus Lupin," she tells him, and he draws her to his chest. His feet are grounded, and the hole that he has carried since his childhood, since the bite that warped him into something secondary from a person- he can feel its absence.

The hole-

The missing piece-

Remus holds his wife, thinks of his son and future child, and the friends that grant him their love. The void that he struggled to give name to, to grant mercy to as he rejected his monstrous other self- he thinks now that it's yet another filled space, a spot he can forgive and accept and perhaps, just as much as she has given him, love.

She fades to slumber, and never willing to leave her for long, he is fast behind her.


End file.
